How well do you know the doctrines of the glorious gospel? Knowing the truth is a glorious blessing as this scripture declares.

http://classic.scriptures.lds.org/en/john/8/32#32
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Take this 5 question quiz and truthfully report your score using the answer key below. Remember the following scripture when doing so.
http://classic.scriptures.lds.org/en/2_ne/9/34#34
"Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell."




1. On May 1, 1843, according to the History of the Church, what did Joseph Smith reveal regarding ancient records that came into his possession:

A. He announced that he had a translation of some ancient records that have fallen into their hands from the catacombs of Egypt containing the writings of Abraham.
B. Through the Urim and Thummin he received the following vision as written on a parchment of John: "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head .... I was answered that I must join none of them ...."
C. He wrote: "I have translated a portion of them [i.e. Kinderhook Plates], and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth."
D. He gave an account by Moroni take from the 24 plates found by the people of Limhi about those millions of ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of the north country in the Americas approximately 2600-2700 years ago.

hint: https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/volume-5-chapter-19


2. Elder Paul H. Dunn, as a representative of the Lord, told some stories about professional sports.

A. He never claimed to have been on any professional sports team.
B. He claimed to have signed a contract with the Ontario Orioles in the "Class C" Sunset League & practiced only a few weeks with them.
C. He claimed to have signed a contract with the St. Louis Cardinals but only having played in the minor leagues & emphasizing that he never made the Majors.
D. He claimed to play for the St. Louis Cardinals, a major league baseball team in St. Louis, Missouri. During his career he pitched for Joe DiMaggio of the Yankees, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and other greats.

hint: see https://www.lds.org/general-conference/speakers?speaker=Paul-H.-Dunn&lang=eng&encoded=true for some of his sermons


3. Which best describes what the canonized scriptures teach us about the papyri that Joseph Smith had and the Book of Abraham.

A. Its the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, which were written by Abraham's own hand upon papyrus. In the 1960's the Church regained possession of portions of the actual papyri used, such as the viginette for Fascimile 1. In this particular Facsimile we get an explanation/translation of particular images as being those of the idolatrous gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, and others.
B. There was some papyri which Joseph Smith had in his possession but none of it that is part of the Book of Abraham and his facsimiles were ever found.
C. With the papyri in his possession that had nothing at all to do with Abraham, God inspired Joseph Smith with a unique revelation of the translation of an ancient authentic Abraham document = our Book of Abraham.
D. The Church doesn't claim it as canonized scripture and doesn't claim that Joseph Smith got any correct explanations/translations for any of the papyri now in the Church's possession.

hint: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/1?lang=eng


4. In his first known account of the First Vision the prophet Joseph Smith said:

A. He gave an account of how one glorious being visited him - "A piller of light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of God and the Lord opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he (not they) spake unto me saying, Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee. Go thy way, walk in my statues, and keep my commandments. Behold I (not we) am the Lord of glory."
B. He gave an account of how two glorious beings visited him - "I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head .... When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! ... I was answered that I must join none of them ...."
C. He never said anything about any beings visiting him in his first account.
D. We have no idea about any accounts ever given by Joseph Smith except for what is in the Pearl of Great Price.

hint: http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/4


5. Which of the following best describes what Brigham Young, the longest serving prophet in LDS history and the namesake of the beloved BYU brand, taught us about marriage between one man and one woman.

A. Each man should be married to precisely one woman who is of the same race and interracial marriage is prohibited.
B. Monogamy has no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman empire and it is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers. It has been so fruitful a source of prostitution and whoredom throughout all the Christian monogamic cities until rottenness and decay are at the root of their institutions both national and religious. If anyone marries outside their race then the law of the Lord will always be death on the spot.
C. Marriage between one man and one woman is ordained of God, regardless of the race of either one, and that this type of family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of his Children.
D. Its unclear what Brigham Young ever taught about marriage regarding the number of wives or interracial marriage. His focus was on the pioneer development of Utah and other places in the intermountain west so the Saints could escape persecution from the wicked as they built Zion.


Answer Key:

1=C; 2=D; 3=A; 4=A; 5=B

On #3 answer B at the end the word should be "never" not "ever".

"There was some papyri which Joseph Smith had in his possession but none of it that is part of the Book of Abraham and his facsimiles were never found."

Oh how wondrous it is to know that Joseph may have had 4 scrolls but we only got 2 from the Museum so some is still missing and this creates an opportunity to test Faith :)

Apparently, it's unfair to judge Mormons based on facts and what they have written down and even codified.

I cheated. I looked at the answer key.
Clearly, I am far too dishonest to belong to the true gospel!!

Since I am a 'nevermo', I am more than just a little curious as to why you continue to post on this website for former Mormons?

Somebody has got to present the worldview that represents what truth believing Mormons do believe when they are fully informed. Otherwise we'd have very dishonest people like Daniel C. Peterson dominating the conversation. It's inconceivable that anyone could go around trying to defend the Church while contradicting what any of the Brethren have ever taught us as all they taught is now part of the glorious forever unchanging gospel doctrines that get to be defended for all time and eternity by the faithful :)

When exmos here look at my posts and say to themselves "wow that perspective totally makes sense and I'm amazed at how honest and transparent the Church is always being on everything" then they will be headed back to Church super fast.

However there is always the risk that some exmo may read what I write and say "that is baloney and this Honest TBM perspective is nutty" and in such cases they are going to run faster away from the Church & as a result miss out on all the wondrous blessings they could have.

I need to disagree. It doesn't matter if we lie to people. What matters is that they learn to be obedient and put everything they have or every will have into this Cause. Then as long as our post-mortal life promises are honest then anytime we must resort to dishonest tactics to make the sales pitch will be just fine and dandy. That's where folks like Daniel C. Peterson are awesome. He is the golden standard on how we should do things. Boyd K. Packer did teach us that some things aren't useful. Thus we have a license to lie. But its all for good purpose because the Brethren say so.

Perhaps Honest TBM's mission was a bust so he traded in his bicycle for a keyboard.

Pre 1900 - honestly pretty good -- Post 1900 --a mass of confusion !!!

JB

Yeah, whatever. Honest TBM must not have read the Guidelines for posting which state, in part:

"This is not a debate board for Mormons to defend the faith. Mormons have many other venues to debate and proclaim their religion. Please allow us our little corner of cyberspace. This board is for those who were once believers and for their friends, families and interested individuals to learn of the cultural aspects of Mormonism."

And if he/she thinks that any exmo here is going to return to tscc because of anything Honest TBM has to say, I would wager that they are sadly mistaken.

Honest TBM is kinda like Brother Jake.

Do you think Brother Jake is trying to win converts or trying to get ex-Mormons to become born-again Mormons?

Honest TBM is just trying to tell the truth through the viewpoint of an Honest TBM.

Just like Brother Jake does, only Honest TBM doesn't have the neat visuals.

Lois

I have zero hope that I'm going to be able to convince any exmo here to return to the Church because of anything I have to say. What's going to get them going back in huge numbers will be when they go to the http://www.lds.org homepage and see for themselves whether the Church is true, i.e. the most honest, transparent, truthful, and straightforward Church :) In this internet era its so awesome to see how fast the Church is able to disseminate everything so people will want to investigate and learn more. Thinking about people saying "gosh this Church is so honest and transparent on their finances, doctrines, statistics, and history & I want to investigate & learn more" sure puts a huge smile on my face :) Being a true Church is a classification that gets started from Day One and then gets built upon from there as each second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, and century the Brethren have the sacred responsibility to work super hard in accurately portraying their visions/revelations and in disseminating the truth on those things and associated topics such as the eternal unchanging doctrines of the Lord, finances, statistics, and history :) That's why the First Vision is so crucial as the standard of truth was erected ;) Why its called "continuing revelation" (rather than "delayed revelations") is because of the awesome responsibility to get the truth out quickly so people don't lose faith & start letting doubts fester about whether or not the Church is honest, transparent, and true. It's kind of like the difference between "real time quotes" and "delayed quotes" from the Wall Street & similar stock exchanges around the world. Furthermore, its important to address important issues as I got to imagine that some individuals trying to cause people to think that the Church was a fraud would try to deal with difficult questions by hiding them deep in the website and/or having anonymous authors. Faith in the Brethren is strengthen immensely by the "real time" and straightforward approach to things :)


I agree that this is not a debate board for me or any Mormons to defend the faith. I suggest that people go to lds.org as there is no better way to defend the faith then to see that website have "continuing revelation" and "true Church" content as I've described above. If ever you catch me possibly violating the rules here then please just remind people to go to the lds.org homepage so they can see for themselves how true, honest, and transparent the Church is. If people want to believe or disbelieve that the Church is honest/transparent then that is their fundamental human right.

And yes this is a very little corner of cyberspace. The exmo community only has over 12 million people globally so compared to the world's population the exmos are certainly less than 1% so the potential reach of this website is quite small. Also as it probably gets around just 200 new threads weekly its even quite small for that small global exmo community.

Hmmmm so this board is for those who were once believers. I suppose I could ask "why" they don't believe in the Church anymore. But then again the doctrine of having a loving heavenly surveillance program monitoring 24/7 all our thoughts/actions reminds me that if I allow a doubt to enter my mind then I could get fried at Judgment Day. So I got to immediately doubt my doubts and just remember how this marvelous doctrine on surveillance surely causes us to conform our way of thinking to be a very peculiar special way. I suppose I could just go around repeating gossip/rumors on what the "real reasons" are for them no longer being believers but that would be very dishonest of me. I will confess though that I've heard that they do so because they are lazy or sinners. But again I remind myself that this assumption of mine is dishonest because its just a rumor.

In my opinion, HonestTBM is one of the best at pointing out the contradictions, hypocrisy and changes in TSCC teachings.
I also believe that is exactly what he is trying to accomplish.

NOT.AT.ALL. I never paid attention in SS or P-Hood class



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2017 06:53PM by Lethbridge Reprobate.

Honest TBM does great work...i have to say hes got the jargon tone and rythym down pat and it still makes me bristle a bit...but its all in good fun...good dude just buckin for DCPs job...why is still the big question...just like gawd creating something from nuthin